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Promote/Advertise a visual novel


Satsuki

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Youtube is a good idea, make a nice trailer.

Maybe try some of the anime news sites and see if they are interested in publishing an article on it.

Ask if people have blogs and if they want to write on it. I can help make you a post om VNAer if you want too :)

And of course get people to talk about it~

Just don't post it on 4chan.

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To be honest, if the visuals are too low-quality, people like me won't even pay attention if the story isn't action-focused.  Hardcore VN fans are hard to please, and I'm one of the prime examples of that particular group of fans (though I know it makes me sound like an ass to say so myself).  To be blunt, if you can play VNs in Japanese, even only partially, you are spoiled rotten when it comes to the visual aspects.   The low-water mark for successful commercial Japanese VNs, even by small companies, is higher than the high-water mark for the few western VN companies, frankly.

 

Sorry, I'm a pessimist when it comes to this kind of thing... very few of the western VNs I've tried has managed to please me visually, and even fewer have managed it from a writing perspective.  Still, if you can please people like me, you can probably please anyone on this side of the water. 

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About good enough, if he can manage that level of quality for everything in the VN, lol.  The style resembles the one that was common around 2006-2009. which was just as the medium was getting set in stone when it came to general visual archetypes. 

 

Anyway... I have two major suggestions for you.

 

1.  If you include character descriptions, make sure they are accurate and the actual sentences show a decent level of literary flair.  It might seem like a minor issue, but a lot of people will judge the seriousness of the project based on how well you describe the characters.

 

2.  I'd avoid using the words 'dating sim' like the plague, unless it really is one.  Serious VN fans will get turned off by those words immediately.

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I think the art looks fine, pretty legit actually. It would definitely be enough for the western VN market (unless you're writing it in japanese for some reason?) 

No, in English. We want to have a Japanese ver too, but it will be in the future ( far future ).

 

 

2.  I'd avoid using the words 'dating sim' like the plague, unless it really is one.  Serious VN fans will get turned off by those words immediately.

That word is banned, no worry.

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If you intend to remake it for the Japanese markets, I'd suggest you convert to a portable medium when you do so, if it has no erotic content.  The main reason I suggest this is because in Japan, the portable market for non-ero VNs is much stronger than the PC market for the same. 

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A couple of things from me:

 

1. I see you are a Left 4 Dead 2 player. PM me, and I can add you on Steam

 

2. That art seems very legit. As Clephas stated, give good character descriptions - starting with a good set of characters will get a lot of people interested in the game. An overarching plot works as well

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I wonder if Lemmasoft and some game development forums will be any good?

 

If you're making a visual novel then promoting on lemma is a must, that's where everybody goes to promote their VNs - Winterwolves, Hanako etc etc. It's a website with a solid history, and a large member base solely dedicated to developing visual novel type games.

 

After that you'll need to pick and choose. Fuwa's a good place also, but some visual novel communities are a little prejudiced against OELVNs so be careful.

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A couple of things from me:

 

1. I see you are a Left 4 Dead 2 player. PM me, and I can add you on Steam

 

2. That art seems very legit. As Clephas stated, give good character descriptions - starting with a good set of characters will get a lot of people interested in the game. An overarching plot works as well

http://steamcommunity.com/id/satsuki2410/

 

 

 

After that you'll need to pick and choose. Fuwa's a good place also, but some visual novel communities are a little prejudiced against OELVNs so be careful.

We actually want to try our luck with some non-visual novel communities too ( it's not like we will lose something after all ), who know what may happen, haha~~~

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We actually want to try our luck with some non-visual novel communities too ( it's not like we will lose something after all ), who know what may happen, haha~~~

 

If the game you're making is a pure VN, consider targeting the 'Interactive Fiction' crowd. The only difference between the majority of 'Interactive Fiction' and 'Visual Novels' is 'Visual Novels' have graphics and sound. The adventure game community might also be worth targeting, and the section of the RPG crowd who love heavy stories might be worth a go.

 

I wish you the best of luck.

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I also build games with visual novel elements and I wish you the best of luck with your project :). Took a look at the art in the link. They will do great, I think. I speak from experience when I say that visuals mean to people infinitely more than writing. If your game looks pretty, you have already made it. Of course, once people download the game, the writing will need to be solid as well. I have a feeling you guys will do fine :).

 

A lot of people will only care about games from Japan no matter what your game looks like. Aside from them, you should be good. I have tried promoting my works on Lemma but I find the folks on Fuwanovel to be more responsive. Some people say the Lemma folks are more about otome games but I am unsure about that.

 

If you drop me a word on Twitter when your game is ready to be promoted, I will be happy to share the news :).

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  • 1 month later...

I'm currently in the progress of doing my own Kickstarter, and while I've gotten news out to a number of outlets I'm still on the lookout for anywhere else I can potentially reach a larger audience, but as was discussed earlier it can sometimes be hard to find places to talk about EVNs because it's a niche inside of a niche.

 

I think when it comes to Lemma, they're very supportive if you're using Ren'Py but if you switch engines less so. This does kind of make sense since most of the people there use it, but ever since I've announced wanting to move the game to Unity it's been much less active than before. However, I think we'll have a much better final product due to it so if we succeed I think it's the better decision.

 

There is some really good suggestions here though! Good luck with your project Satsuki!

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Satsuki, word of advice. The MC needs to be freaking interesting - like, literally interesting. Something on the lines of Yuuji from Grisaia or Takeru from Muv-Luv. If MC puts his hand behind his head I will fucking punch my monitor so god damn hard that I'---four paragraphs of censorship- .. .bewhha .. I hate childish and generic MCs.

If it's something like Grisaia I'm cool with that. If it's with action then kill the damn characters with passion and honor or/and twisted shit - similar to Muv-Luv Alternative.

Who's doing your BGMs?

I hope it's not a mystery/detective novel ... they're boring as hell (just my opinion).

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Satsuki, word of advice. The MC needs to be freaking interesting - like, literally interesting. Something on the lines of Yuuji from Grisaia or Takeru from Muv-Luv. If MC puts his hand behind his head I will fucking punch my monitor so god damn hard that I'---four paragraphs of censorship- .. .bewhha .. I hate childish and generic MCs.

If it's something like Grisaia I'm cool with that. If it's with action then kill the damn characters with passion and honor or/and twisted shit - similar to Muv-Luv Alternative.

Who's doing your BGMs?

I hope it's not a mystery/detective novel ... they're boring as hell (just my opinion).

There are some kind of mystery stuffs, but not the entire VN is about that. 

The MC, well, I won't say that he will be so OP badass like Shiba Tatsuya (or Kirito) (and no, this is not an action VN), but he is not some kind of dull, weak, pathetic, ordinary cliché, blah blah...protagonist either, so you can rest assured.

For the music, Animenz is in charge of it ( maybe some of you know about him already)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IXBeO8BngQ

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Very beautiful. Who is writing the story?

Our project founder. Just an amateur writer, but his writing skill and idea about the story are quite good, so I don't worry much about it.

Actually, aside from the artist and musician, all of our other staffs (me included) are pretty much amateur~

We tried to recruit the creator of Renpy engine as our programmer (he himself wanted to help at first), but failed after some disagreement~~

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So how about the common route? Are you guys able to make it really spicy and interesting like Grisaia?

Can't say anything for sure at the moment, since we still need to edit this and that, but it will kinda follow Key's style, with comedy/slice of life in common and serious in heroine routes (yes, it's a nakige). 

I haven't play Grisaia, btw. 

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I know what type of audience your game is suited for, and that group is massive in number. You should end up with an extremely successful campaign :).

 

If I were in this project, I guess one concern I would have is that target audience going oh the game is not from Japan I don't care then. But pretty graphics can probably overcome that.

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